I want to write to you today about the doctrine of redemption. It is an important doctrine because it is the heart of the gospel. Why is it so important? Because as long as preachers leave out the issue of sin, the issue of guilt, the issue of eternal damnation, the debt incurred by violating the law of God, then the doctrine of redemption is lost. How can we sing, “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it; redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed through his infinite mercy; His child forever I am,” if we don’t know what we are singing about?

Today, the modern preacher preaches that through a spiritual experience Jesus can make nice people nicer, bad people nice, good people better, unhappy people happier, purposeless people purposeful, unfulfilled people fulfilled, unsuccessful people successful and discontented people content. But in the Bible, God is not a therapist, he is a redeemer. People don’t just lack purpose, they are not just unfulfilled, they are not just dysfunctional, they are under the just condemnation of God. They’re on death row headed for a judgment they deserve without the capacity to change it. The purest person who ever lived, the only sinless person who ever lived, the greatest communicator that ever lived, the greatest storyteller that ever lived, the most profound mind that ever lived, the greatest motivator that ever lived, the one with the greatest insight into human behavior that ever lived, was killed because what he said was unacceptable to a self-righteous world.

Read Galatians 3:10-14 and let’s see what the Bible says. The Problem is in v.10. Everyone who comes under the law of God is cursed. Who is everybody? Everyone, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All of us are held accountable to the Law of God and everyone under that law is cursed. Duet. 27:26 says, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law to perform them.” That is the curse, the Law curses people. It curses everybody. Most people when they think of the law they think of some sort of noble, lofty, ethical code summarized in the Ten Commandments. They think of it as some system to strive to live by and if you make a good run at it God will forgive you even if you fail because you really tried. That is what the Jews believed. They picked out a few pieces of the external law and that if they showed an interest in the law and tried to adhere to the law God would be pleased with them and thus they had obtained some sort of self-righteousness in their attempt to keep the law. But Jesus called them white-washed sepulchers, on the inside filled with dead men’s bones.

In fact in John 7:46, they believed that the only people cursed under the law were those who did not know the law or who were indifferent to the law. Jesus came and condemned them for that and they killed him. Cursed is everyone who doesn’t abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. You have to keep it all. You have to keep it all, all the time. If you break it one time, you are under its curse. What was the purpose of the law? Romans 4:15 says the law works wrath. The law produces judgment. The law brings a curse. Every person in the world is born in sin, therefore sins, therefore violates the law, therefore is cursed, and therefore is subject to eternal judgment. No one is justified by the law before God because the righteous do not live by the law but by faith. If you want to achieve your own righteousness before God you are obligated to keep the whole law and you can’t do that. So that is the problem and the problem is that we are all cursed.

Let me tell you a few things about the law because if you don’t understand the law you can’t appreciate redemption. The law requires behavior contrary to your nature. The law of God asks you to do exactly what you do not want to do. It is the opposite of your longings, your lusts, and your desires. It is not the path of least resistance, it is the hard way. You must love what you hate and hate what you love. You have to desire what you don’t desire and want what you don’t want. If you are going to try to live by the law you are going to have a serious battle your whole life trying to do what you don’t want to do and what there’s nothing in you that longs to do it.

The law also requires behavior that is impossible; it is not only against your will but against your ability. It’s impossible. Even if you do your best it is in God’s eyes as filthy rags. You can’t think holy thoughts and speak holy words because there are not any of us who are good. The summation of the law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. And we can’t do that.

The Law also requires perfection. It demands perfect compliance. Matthew 5:28 says, “Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” That’s the standard and it never relents. So we are cursed because we have to do what we don’t want to do, we try to do what we can’t do, and we are commanded to do it perfectly, which is beyond our possibilities.

The law refuses to accept good intentions and effort as compensation. Effort counts for nothing. Good intentions count for nothing.

The law accepts no payback plan. Some people think I know I’ve done a lot of bad things, but now I am going to do a lot of good things and that will cancel out the bad things. No, the debt is never discounted. The debt is never negotiated. The debt is never repaid. You can’t atone for your sin by doing good things, by religious activity, by praying, by saying beads or going to confession. There is no way to wipe out one single sin of the past. If you break the law only once in your life and never again and spent the rest of your life doing what was right, it would not cancel out that one wrong sin and that one sin would be enough to damn you. In fact, if you spent your whole life doing what is right and committed one sin right before you died, all that accumulated merit would count for nothing.

The law is an unrelenting taskmaster. It never takes the weekend off, it never eases up, and it never lightens the load. That is why Paul said when I understood the law, I died, it just killed me, it slew me, and it crushed me. The law never relaxes its requirements and never gives the sinner a moment’s rest.

The law destroys happiness. It is like a steel rod crushing a clay pot. It is like a hammer through a glass window. The law produces shame and guilt and remorse and sorrow and fear and pain and futility and hopelessness and restlessness and anxiety and depression. That is why you find the publican pounding his chest in the synagogue saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” It was the agony of unrelieved guilt. He pounds his chest and drops his eyes to the ground because he is crushed under the oppressive and relentless weight of the law. He has no joy, no peace, and no happiness. He can’t find any relief so he beats himself in an act of contrition and pain, demonstrating physically what his heart feels.

The law requires the severest penalty. The law has only one penalty, hell forever. Everybody gets it. There is no parole or time off for good behavior. And no one gets a shorter sentence. You break the law once and you get eternal judgment.

The law demands but doesn’t help. It offers you no strength. It offers no plan. It offers no methodology. It offers no assistance. It offers you no power or nothing to help you. In fact, it offers no salvation. It can’t make you different and it can’t save you. It doesn’t listen to your repentance. It doesn’t care that you are pounding your chest. It doesn’t care if you are depressed or full of shame and guilt. It doesn’t care how sorry you are or broken or remorseful. It is indifferent to all repentance and today people go to confess their sins to a priest or offer something to a false god, or go through some kind of ceremonial thing and it offers you no freedom.

The law offers no forgiveness. There is no mercy in the law and there is no grace in the law. That is why it is called the law.

The law offers no hope. There is no promise that it will get better or that tomorrow will be brighter, that the future will be less difficult. No, the future will be horrible and will last forever. Is that how you want to live, under the law? Do you want to work your way to hell thinking you are working your way to heaven? We are all under the weight of the crushing violation of the law of God which renders us guilty before God waiting for a just punishment meted out by a holy God. Our only hope is that someone would rescue us. Our only hope is that someone would pay the debt we owe. Our only hope is that someone would pay the price. Peter said, “It can’t be of silver and gold.”

Then, what is the Provision in v.13. It is not therapy but a provision called redemption. It brought us out from under the curse. Gal. 4:5 says, “He redeemed those who were under the law”. Paul said to Timothy, He is a ransom for us all. Paul said to Titus, he gave himself that he might redeem us. How did he do that? V.13 says he redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Do you understand the death of Christ? He dies on the cross and pays your debt and pays my debt. Deut. 21:23 says cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So Jesus became a curse for us and took our punishment. Who did he die for? The ungodly. He didn’t die for the godly because there aren’t any. While we were yet sinners he died for us. Hebrews says through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. It is a redemption that the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t obtain. But once you are redeemed, it’s forever.

What was the problem? The curse. What was the provision? Christ. Then what was the purpose? V.14 That is a purpose clause. In order that in Christ Jesus two things become ours. First, The blessing of Abraham. What is the blessing that came to Abraham? Romans 4 says Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. What was the great gift God gave to Abraham? Righteousness. He removed the curse not through Abraham’s works but through Abraham’s faith. So too can we become justified through faith. We can be made righteous and have the curse removed. Secondly, the coming of the Holy Spirit. What is the work of the spirit? To produce in us a new heart, a new spirit, a new love for the law of God and a desire to keep that law. Yes, we are free from the penalty of the law but not free from the obligation to obey God. What a staggering doctrine, this doctrine of redemption. Christ became a curse for us. He paid the price to purchase us back from sin and damnation. He sets us before God as holy and righteous. And he places his spirit in us to help us to be holy and righteous in practice. That is the glory of redemption.

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The Rev. Dr. James Barnes is currently the pastor of White Memorial Church in Milroy.